I’ll make this quick.
If you loved the original 1982 film Tron, if you played the video game till your fingers cramped, if you thought the visuals were ahead of their time and if you loved the concept, the story and everything about it, then you will love Tron: Legacy. It’s not a matter of being objective…it’s nostalgia. And there’s no way to critique sentiment.
But…if you are, like me, a relative novice to the Tron universe, then you’d do better to wander into another movie theatre because, I fear, the updated world of Tron would not only make no sense to you, but it might even bore you. And then you’d feel completely uncool.
It’s too bad, because the first film was original, compelling and entertaining. This sequel falls flat, with virtually none of the stakes and tension of the first film, none of the charm and certainly none of the humor. The visuals are cool, that is a given, but that’s all it has to offer. If I wanted to see great visuals with a boring and derivative story, I would watch Avatar again.